From Chapter 1
Quote:
. . . a disciple of an Eastern guru recounted a vignette to illustrate how his master could teach a profound lesson in a few words. The guru was having a temple built in his honor. Disciples from all over the world had come to the cornerstone ceremony with treasures, many of them of considerable value, to buried in a large hole under the foundation. The narrator had been chosen as the first to deposit his offering in the hole. He describes how in his pride at being selected to be first, he chose a large rock and enthusiastically threw it in. He then looked at the master, who said to him quietly, "Too much 'getting' is going on here." The man concluded by saying: that his humbled ego became far wiser as a result of those few words.
For the chastised disciple, the guru's lesson was a statement that his giving was not pure enough. Another entirely different interpretation of the above scenario is possible: To have a temple built in one's honor and then to further waste valuable gifts by burying them to symbolize one's greatness is a sign of a monumental ego that has little constraint. One of the cheapest guru ploys is to make people feel inadequate by showing how their behaviors are tainted with self-centeredness - always an easy task. This guru, who was the recipient of all this "getting", could not even share a little bit of it with his disciple without making him feel bad about himself. Perhaps the disciple's gift, a mere rock, was not grand enough. But since the guru is viewed by his disciples as a person beyond duality and beyond ego, they could not even entertain the possiblity of our interpretation.
Consequently, the disciple entirely missed the real lesson of history: The guru's "getting" and self-enhancement are masked by images of enlightenment and selflessness and thus are made unconscious. Once his purity and hence superiority are taken for granted, it is assumed that he deserves to be "getting" precisely because he is thought enlightened. He can thus reprimand his disciple for the very activity he was involved in on a far grander scale without it seeming hypocritical. Who gets and who gives is never questioned because "spiritual" values mask what is really going on.
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The elders of the church in Anaheim, loyal hand-picked men all, got to see behind the mask. They saw a man like themselves, trying to deal with his errant son, and the genuine conflicts that this produced. For the moment, the mask of selflessness disappeared, and the man behind the mask was revealed. A man like themselves.
Paul ran among the people crying, "We are men like yourselves!!" (Acts 14:15) He wouldn't let them elevate him to some pseudo-mystical realm, passed beyond the riven veil of common mortals. No, he was of the "demos", of the people. But this guru from the east convinced new disciple RK that there was "No self" in Witness Lee the Bible expositor, when in reality he had self just like the rest of us. But it was hidden in esoteric and recondite mysticism, doubly pernicious because it came wrapped in Protestant and post-Protestant (19th century Brethrenist) terminology. So a graduate of Princeton Divinity School, in this example, became convinced that the fast track to heaven, in this case the "Consummated New Jerusalem", was found in being absolutely submissive to this ascended master, who had somehow ascended far above, into cloudless empyrean realms.
"Don't ask" and "don't think" and "don't question" became the hallmarks of this group. They loudly waved the oneness that came from the Spirit which raised Christ Jesus from the dead, but actual oneness was only to be found in absolute submission to the Deputy God.